Senin, Oktober 13, 2008

ID1.5b. service project in Duhuk

A service project worth 1.5 Iraqi dinars in Aqra district, Duhuk province, was finalized on Sunday, according to Mayor Jahur Ali.

“The project envisaged opening new roads and paving internal streets as well as linking the district to a main road in Aqra district, (110 km) southeastern Duhuk, at a total cost of 1.5 billion Iraqi dinars from the provincial development budget for Duhuk,” Ali told Aswat al-Iraq.Aqra, 65 km north of Mosul city, encompasses three districts and 125 villages.

It boasts several tourist sites like Bakerman, Sipa waterfalls, Zanta and others. Seventy percent of its area is farmland.Also spelled Duhok, Dohuk Dehok or Dahok; it is a city in the far northern part of Iraq to the borders with Turkey.

Lying 460 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, it has about 500,000 inhabitants, mostly consisting of Kurds and Assyrians.According to some sources, the name “Duhuk” comes from Kurmanji Kurdish meaning “small village”.Circled by mountains along the Tigris river, Duhuk, the third province with Iraq’s Kurdistan region, has a growing tourist industry.

Its population grew extremely since the 1990s as the rural population moved to the cities.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, Duhuk and Iraqi Kurdistan in general have remained the only safe places for foreigners.